- This large 28 cu. ft. refrigerator won't take up more space in your kitchen. Our strong, thin-wall insulation technology gives you more usable space inside for easier storage and organization.
- A refrigerator is usually the most energy-consuming appliance in your home, but this one is ENERGY STAR approved and has a door alarm to alert you when a door is ajar. This kind of conscious cooling is good for your wallet and the environment.
- Quick and easy access to filtered water and cubed/crushed ice at your fingertips with the external dispenser.
- The mid-drawer provides flexible temperature control for your food storage needs with Meat/Fish, Cold Drinks, Deli/Snacks and Wine/Party Dishes options. The SmartDivider allows easy organization within the mid-drawer.
- Our strategically placed, highly efficient LED lighting brightens every corner so you can quickly find what you need. A cooler source of light, LED emits less heat and is much more energy efficient than traditional bulb lighting.
All that aside, the bottom line to any appliance purchase today is akin to betting on roulette and expecting to win (worst odds ever). Like many, I did an inordinate amount of product research and read countless customer reviews prior to purchasing. Opinions and experiences are all over the map. And this is a fundamental problem for all brands not just Samsung. As mentioned elsewhere there is much outsourcing going on and it seems almost impossible for manufacturers to attain consistent quality levels. BTW, I was surprised to learn (after purchasing) this refrigerator is imported from Korea. I bring this up only because it supports many customer complaints concerning long wait times when breakdowns inevitably occur. The delays are primarily the result of long distance parts delivery. Several service repair companies I contacted are not even qualified to work on these appliances as Samsung strictly controls the qualification process along with parts distribution (exporting from Korea).
To be fair, this Samsung replaces a 12-year old Maytag side by side (with ice-maker) which I can't begin to relate just how horrible and unreliable a refrigerator can be! It was the first appliance I ever bought with an extended warranty (reluctantly). It was also the first appliance I inevitably recouped my money from using that warranty (and then some) due to abnormally frequent repairs and parts replacement (both costly to the insurance company). What I learned from this is warranties can be useful for offsetting expensive service and food replacement costs but doesn't instill customer confidence or improve product reliability... it is what it is. Factor in countless hours due to lost work time; aggravation with incompetent CSR agents; delays and missed appointments with repair ppl and inordinate amounts of wasted food... you can easily see where this is going.
So don't hate Samsung just because it's not assembled in North America (who is?) or you see customer complaints online. In fact, check any brand and it's pretty much the same for all. CR may rate some models and brands higher but unfortunately (and inevitably) they all have issues. There are only a handful of companies (worldwide) making compressors and major components for refrigerators these days and every manufacturer is buying from them. So no brand is immune and "inconsistent" quality has been around for awhile now. The days of buying a refrigerator (or any major appliance) and expecting it to last for 20 years are long over. And spending more money doesn't help either. High end brands such as Viking and Sub-Zero are notoriously problematic and appear even more unreliable.
The bottom line is no matter how much research and regardless what brand you prefer or currently own... you definitely will be rolling the dice and taking a bigger chance than you might expect on your next purchase. The days of "Maytag reliability" are long gone (I can most definitely attest to that). Long term reliability is not the norm, it is an anomaly. Don't expect your next refrigerator to provide more than 7-10 years of consistent reliability (at most). Like other "tech toys" refrigerators have become trendy fashion statements, several high end models have built in flat screens with wi-fi, so don't expect them to last long. In fact, the tech will easily become obsolete long before the warranty ends prompting many to upgrade just to stay current.
The best advice I can offer anyone is cover your bets and consider an extended warranty and use AmEx or Discover (check their respective policies) to extend it another year. Because unlike back in the day, it may not take years to see problems develop in new appliances and 28 cubic feet of food spoils real quick and gets real expensive...
Update: 07-29-12
A brief update: After more than 7 months there is no significant issues to report and that is really saying something these days...
The refrigerator continues to operate flawlessly albeit with the following very minor issues. Every so often the unit makes a slight humming, mechanical or vibrating noise emanating from the rear. If I give it a slight nudge or push, it stops but returns infrequently. My suspicion is there may be a lose line inside the back that vibrates in sympathy with the compressor when it kicks on. Still its only sporadic and not repeatable enough to call out a tech... yet.
Beyond that all areas of the fridge appear to operate normally maintaining correct temps within acceptable tolerances. I installed 3 small digital thermometers within the upper, mid and lower (double door fridge, pull-out drawer & freezer) sections. Depending on time of day and frequency of access, the temps rarely deviate beyond +/5 degrees, which is really good especially with the unrelenting summer heat.
Our electric utility bills appear slightly higher than last year but the utility's "smart meter" indicates outdoor temps to be almost 2 degrees hotter these past months. Factor in our utilities super high rate pricing or "peak demand" for July & August (thanks SRP) and abnormally higher temps and it's tough to know if the refrigerator's efficiency gains aren't offset by our home's dual AC systems which cycle more frequently this time of year?
Lastly, the annoying ice maker continues to do it's part, still functioning normally albeit loudly. We have come to terms with it and now view it as a "feature" enhancement as you always know when its working. Guess you can get used to anything, all in all no real regrets...A little more than a month ago we bought a new Samsung RF4287HARS refrigerator. It is Samsung's top of the line model. It has many wonderful features. We love the center drawer with flex temperature control; the style, look and feel are great; the lighting inside is even better than anything else we saw. There was only one problem: It didn't work.
After a couple weeks the fridge just stopped cooling the ice melted and drained water all over our floor, much to the chagrin of our dog who was sleeping nearby; the freezer defrosted, meaning it was steak night (with both corn and beans hurray); the entire interior went to over 45 degrees according to our handy dandy thermometer. It just wasn't running. We had repair people come out twice, the second time they said it could not be fixed.
OK, that happens. Sears agreed to replace the unit with a brand new one. Three cheers for Sears!
The second new unit was installed and within a couple weeks we had the exact same problem. Warm soda and a wet dog but hey, steak for dinner again. The service people came out and said it was a bad sensor. OK, that happens. So they replaced the sensor a week or so later (they had to order the parts, but the good news is that it is currently cold outside, so at least we had cold food for a while). After replacing the sensor it worked great for nearly a few days and then had the exact same problem again! By this point we have run out of frozen steak (and just about everything else), although our dog has never smelled better. But back came the repair people this time the diagnosis is a bad mother board (although having watched several repair people work on this model it becomes increasingly clear that they do not really know what's wrong; at best, they are guessing).
We are now faced with the question of what to do next. Option 1: replace the second unit with a third new version of this model, and hope that the third time is the charm. My concern is that, as Einstein said, insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Option 2: replace the second unit with a model from a different manufacturer. But here is a small problem we looked at other units and found that the GE Profile models had many similar features and might make a good replacement for the Samsung version. But as we looked closer today we noticed that the one drawer GE was a little too similar to the one drawer and two drawer Samsung. If you look at them side by side you will notice that they are so similar that it appears they are actually made with identical parts. In an era where outsourced and contract manufacturing is common in many industries, this raises the concern that even the GE models would have the same problems as they may be made in the same factory with the same parts, leading to the same defects or issues.
For those of you keeping score, that is: Samsung refrigerators 2, Cold Food Zero, Steak Dinners 2, Wet Dogs 3, and spoiled food more than $300.
So in short, Samsung has included many great features in this unit. They only thing it seems to be lacking is coldness.So far the fridge works well, has tons of capacity, flexible shelving systems.
This unit is a tad shorter than others in this size class. It needs only 68.5" of clearance for the portion of the unit behind the hinges. There is a plastic cord holder/dust cover on the back left top of the ice box. This was a cover for a recessed area that looks like where the water connects to the ice maker. I had to remove it to fit under the 68.5" face frame I had. This leaves about 1/4" top clearance at the face frame of the upper cabinet (of course 2" above top when you get past the face frame). I did cover the recessed area with packing tape to keep dust out.
The touch screen is a little finicky about where you touch. To switch ice types or turn ice off, you actually don't touch the screen rather the top curved area of the ice/water portal not very clear in manual, luckily there one one obscure picture that showed the correct spot.
The middle "flex" drawer looks very promising.
Will update this over time.
Update: 06/17/10
I did see a better picture about turning ice off better that my initial review. Ice maker has a somewhat different and slightly louder "ice drop" sound. The ice making frequency could be faster, but only time will tell if it keeps up with summer demand. I did have to tweak the alignment of the upper doors could not be simpler!!!piece of dried cow dung.
We replaced our white electric stove with a stainless gas stove which led to replacing the fridge, washer/dryer and dishwasher with stainless. My wife had re-painted the kitchen and it needed the updates anyway. Went with Samsung on all at Lowes as they had a big sale on.
Bought this reftigator in November however they were not able to deliver until Fedruary as the units were "out of stock". Looking back this may be a form of bait and switch. We still had our 14 year old GE purring away so not a biggie. Besides my wife loved this unit.
Lowes delivered. Whoa unit was totally unlevel. Celled them back and had them come back out to level the unit and door. Leveled unit but it was unstable and guy seid he could not level doors!
Decided to wait a little while to see if unit might settle before calling them again. Six weeks later woke up and the temp display was flashing. Unplugged as the manual states and while it came cack on the temp level was unstable. As a matter of fact it would run for a while and shut off before both levels were at set point. Freezer would say -4 and fridge 57. Unplug to reset and the freezer would be 38 and fridge 57. This would flip flop. Finally went to Lowes and they gave me a number to call.
Called the number and the first thing the person did was to try and upsell an extended warranty claiming ours started the day we bought it. Declined and they finally set up a service call for THREE days later.
Called Samsung and they straightned out warranty but could not get anyone out quicker and as a matter of fact used the same people as Lowes who are in Fort Lauderdale FL while we are in North Alabama. Boy wonder how long a follow up call takes as it is a 16 hour drive.
We have moved the freezer items to our chest deep freeze and moved important fresh food items such as medicines to a dorm type fridge we used to keep beverages in. Like I told my wife great we have a three thousand dollar Samsung and are keeping stuff in a ninty-nine dollar dorm fridge.
What scares me is our other appliances are Samsung. What I have decided to do is savings be damned and am calling Lowes to pick up all the appliences and doing like I did at first for appliances and buy from a local appliance dealer.
The other dealer installed the appliances correctly, had a serviceman out immediatey when we did have a problem, is ten minutes away and know how to follow-up. Inconvenience and frustation with poorly made and installed appliances are not worth saving the bucks.
As a final on the electronics. We had out house re-wired to curcuit breakers and the TV and surround system are on the same breaker and they are working fine so I beleive the problem lies as with many in poor design and/or manafacture.
Know this review is a little long but when you are looking at paying three thousand dollars for a fidge that may self destruct in a few weeks you need as much info as possible. If you go ahead wish you the best of luck. We gambled and lost.
FOLLOW UP ON SERVICE. The tech arrived three days later and my wife called me at work saying he had it fixed and needed to talk to me. He claimed the outlet it was plugged into was not grounded and he had replugged it into another that is and it was good to go. He asked me to call him later to report on the temperatur of the unit. Three hours later is was 61 degrees! Called and reaponse was oh that is what is happening which we had expained several times to Lowes, Samsung and his dispatcher not including the description given to him. Well I will order the parts because Samsung sent me out without any parts and be back Friday which was three days later. After I got off teh phone I remembered as mentioned the circuit he said was not grounded is the one I have my Pioneer Elite Surround plugged into and the Monster surge protector/power conditioner says the circuit is grounded?
I went the next day to Lowes and requested they come get everything. The response was we have a new one in stock now and will excnange if you call Samsung. Thirty minutes on the phone with Samsung the next day and yes we can RMA it but it takes 3-5 days to get it authorized. Lowes did get it OKd the next day and delivered it two days later. They still did a bad job of leveling which I corrected the next day ijncluding leveling the doors.
The tech called three days later and his comment was I have the parts now and can I come by and see if they fix it. This was TEN DAYS after the original problem was reported. Way too long when you are dealing with an appliance that is suppoused to preserve food not spoil it.
The new unit is nosier but works better. So far three weeks it is OK but time will tell. Ice noise and volume is still lackluster compared to the old GE.
Samsung service and customer satisfaction conderns are at best comicial and at average diasterous. Boy this review ihas turned into a novel which if you read I hope you find helpful
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I fell in love with the design of this particular refrigerator. Loved it all the flex drawer, the lighting, the adjustable shelves, etc. Nothing else could compare. I read some of the bad reviews, but noticed all of the good as well and went ahead and purchased it. That was less than 90 days ago.Woke up this morning to a warm fridge and warm freezer. The flex drawer appears to still be cool. Repairman thinks it might be the main electrical board. So...we have to wait another 5-6 days for the part to come in. He's seen them go out in as few as two weeks. Unbelievable. We had our other "middle of the road" fridge for 10 years with no issues. I am worried about the next board going out as well.
Read all of the reviews and buy cautiously. One last note get the extra warranty. That is what is covering the cost of all of our spoiled food.
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